David Lavis

Dr. David Lavis is an Emeritus Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at King's College London, affiliated with the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences. He previously held roles as a lecturer and Senior Lecturer at UMIST, Chelsea College London, and served as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow before becoming a Research Associate at the London School of Economics' Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. His research focuses on critical phenomena, phase transitions, and foundational questions in statistical mechanics and thermodynamics.

Dr. Lavis earned his BSc from Queen Mary College (1961) and PhD from the University of Manchester (1965). He was honored as a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications (1977). His career includes leave appointments at Makerere University, Institut Laue-Langevin, and Canadian institutions.

His research interests explore phase transitions, negative temperatures, and equilibrium processes. Recent work includes analyzing thermal physics in finite systems and re-examining negative temperature theories. His book Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics of Lattice Models (2015) is a seminal contribution to the field.

• Awards: Fellowships from the Institute of Physics and Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications.
• Collaborations: Active in the Disordered Systems group at King's, focusing on statistical mechanics of complex systems.